Don’t tell me, this is how the world is. Don’t
tell me there is a reason for bad things to happen
so better blossoms to bloom

on a sunny morning in June. Don’t
tell me to accept whomever’s will. I’d rather
eat my own soul, or what’s left of it after I

splice open the cage & take it out, squeeze it
till it too turns cyanotic-blue, drained of all
the scarlet good deeds. At least it will stop hurting.
Tell me angels walk upright among us — the dumb
humans with two legs, one big brain, two arms holding two guns.
Help me

believe we will transcend yet another senseless crime.
Answer me why we make the best killers of our own kind:
we spare no child. We aren’t the weak merciful kind.
Seedlings and seeds, husks or no husks, we will shred them into dust.
Don’t tell me–

how to love. We aren’t capable. There’s no light left in us,

dawn or dusk.
I heard seven loud booms. Teachers tell us
to run. We did not scream, but we–

cry. We did not ask why. When the policemen came
and told us to flee, we sprinted to the parking lot
like little lost leopards. We are the shadows of